Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

She kicked off her shoes. Then, holding his gaze, unfastened the zipper at the back of her skirt, letting it fall to her feet. She stepped out of the circle of fabric and felt that hitch again inside her, because his gaze changed.

The way he looked at her made her think of wild things. Birds of prey, fast and dangerously large cats, predators of every description. There was something impossibly masculine in the way he gazed at her, and it made that place between her legs throb as if his hand was already there, cupping her.

That hard, decidedly male grip, that she’d dreamed about since. Too many times to count.

She pulled off her dark silk blouse, then dropped it to the side. She still held his gaze because that was all heat and demand, and better, somehow, than accepting the fact that she was standing before Balthazar Skalas wearing nothing but her bra and some panties.

She realized he’d gone still. As if he’d turned to stone, though there was absolutely no doubt that he was a real, live man. Even if made of flesh, she suspected he would scald her if she leaned across the desk and touched him.

Why did she want to do it anyway?

Kendra didn’t wait for him to egg her on further. She reached around and unhooked her bra, then shrugged it off.

He made a sound then, perhaps nothing more than a breath, but it was like fireworks going off inside of her—bright and hot and uncontrollable.

She fought it, but her own breath came faster, then.

It was as if there was an electrical charge between them, too intense. Almost painful.

But she wasn’t done. She couldn’t dwell on what was happening inside of her, because she still felt a kind of drumming in her chest, threatening her ribs, that made her feel as if she needed to show him exactly how wrong he was about her.

So Kendra finished the job, stripping off her panties and dropping them on top of the pile of her clothes.

Leaving her...standing there. Stark naked.

And though her cheeks were hot and she felt certain that the flush extended all over the rest of her body, though she was aware that she had so many competing emotions it actually hurt, she couldn’t access the things she was feeling. Not quite.

Because his gaze was all over her.

And then, to her horror—no, no, a voice in her chided, that’s not horror and you know it—Balthazar moved out from behind the desk.

He hadn’t said he would touch her, and she assured herself that if he did, if he dared, she would—

But that was a lie. It wasn’t even a fully formed thought and it was a lie.

Because the thought of Balthazar touching her made her shiver. That low heat bloomed.

And once again, she was as slippery and hot, as if he’d just finished stroking his way deep into her core.

Maybe she wanted him to.

But all he did was come to stand before her, that cruel face of his unreadable.

If it weren’t for that blazing heat in his dark gaze, she might have crumpled into the pile of her discarded clothes.

He let her stand there as he regarded her for what felt to Kendra like a lifetime. Three lifetimes.

Then he walked in a circle around her.

As if she was a horse.

“Do you need to inspect my teeth?” she asked. Acidly.

“Not yet.”

She had to bite her tongue again, particularly as he took his sweet time. She could feel him and his dark perusal. His gaze was like a touch, running all over her, tracing over her body and making her pulse get faster and faster by the second.

When he finally made his way around the front again, it was almost worse. Her breasts felt heavy once more, the way she remembered they had in that gazebo years ago. Beneath his commanding gaze, her nipples puckered and shamed her. Because she could tell herself that it was the chill from his air-conditioning units, but she knew better. And so, she could see, did he.

He let his gaze drop, coming to rest between her thighs. And Kendra was absurdly grateful that he couldn’t see what was happening there. He couldn’t see how much she truly wanted him.

Even though something in her whispered that he could.

“How extraordinary,” Balthazar murmured after a while. “I was sure that color had to be fake.”

She had no idea what he meant. But then, when he lifted his gaze to hers again, she got it.

And hated the fact that her cheeks burst into a brighter flame. She could feel it roll all the way over her body, like a flash flood of heat, so that she likely matched the hair on her head and between her legs that he’d apparently found so hard to believe was real. She felt red and obvious, and had to grit her teeth to keep from diving for cover.

“There are so many things I find surprising about you, kopéla,” Balthazar continued on, as if this was a deeply boring dinner party and he was sharing his views on something distressingly civil and dry. As if she wasn’t naked before him. Why did that make it even harder to pull in a full breath? “This shocking show of obedience, for example. I would have said a girl of your station would find it impossible.”

She made herself breathe, somehow. “I told you I was here to make amends, if possible.”

“Naked amends.” As if she might have missed that. He considered her for a moment, that face of his stern. “What a good daughter you are, Kendra. Far more of a sister than your brother deserves, don’t you think?”

She didn’t answer that.

“How far does this obedience extend, I wonder?” He stood before her, the devil in a dark suit that fit him much too well, fully aware of his power. Exultant in it, even. “If I asked you to drop to your knees and take me in your mouth, would you? If I bent you over